


Acceptance

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Acceptance, Gen, Gossip, King's Own, Knight & Squire, Nepotism, Pranks, Rumors, Tricks, adjustments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 07:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Alan and the Own adjust to Alan's new position as Lord Raoul's squire.





	Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyLingua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLingua/gifts).



Acceptance

When Alan stepped out of the tent he shared with Lord Raoul on the fringes of what felt like the fiftieth ramshackle village he had been to in the month since he had started as Lord Raoul’s squire but was probably only the fifth, a bucket of smelly slop he didn’t wish to consider the dubious origin of was poured on him. He managed to fling his hands up to protect his face but was unable to shield his clothes or hair from a disgusting drenching. 

Cursing, Alan surveyed the damage and concluded that he would have to be late to his assigned kitchen duty unless he wanted to show up reeking like a swamp, which was doubtlessly the intent of whoever had affixed the slop bucket to a rope attached to the tent flap so that anyone who left the tent would be coated in something that made Alan’s stomach recoil. 

He would have to scrub his hands and hair thoroughly, begin soaking his soiled clothes, and change into a fresh shirt and breeches before hastening over to the cooking tent, hopefully without falling victim to any more pranks. As he retreated into his tent, Alan thought with a sigh that if he had known that the Own would be this intolerant of his presence among them, he would have declined Lord Raoul’s offer to be his knightmaster…

When Lord Raoul had asked Alan to be his squire, Alan recalled as he dumped water from an ewer into a wash basin and began to wash his hands and hair in a frenzy that suggested he could scrub out the memory of how he had come to be Lord Raoul’s squire, the idea had seemed too perfect, too promising to be believed. Maybe that was what should have made Alan skeptical of it, but he had been wary in his own way. 

Lord Raoul approached him in the practice courts, which had been eerily empty as the leaves began to change because Lord Padraig had ridden south to the Bazhir desert with the pages for survival skills training in the harsh, arid environment where Lord Padraig had spent so much of his military service to the Crown. Alan’s immediate response had, of course, been enthusiastic assent. Nobody, he thought, could blame a boy for being almost giddy with glee at the prospect of squiring for a hero of the realm. 

This was especially true for him since he had been starting to fear that because he had begun page training late and suffered under the double condemnation of a newly ennobled father everyone understood had once been the King of Thieves and a mother who had scandalized the country by concealing her gender to become the first female knight in centuries that no one would wish to risk the social ruin of requesting his services as squire. 

Lord Imrah, who had rode to the palace at the end of the summer to meet with the king, had promised Alan that if no other knight had taken him by the time all the leaves had fallen, he could come back to Legann and train there as a squire as he had as a page until Lord Wyldon had resigned, but he believed that Alan might learn more—and different—lessons from another knight. The king himself and Gary had hinted that they would take him as squire if they didn’t suspect that he would get impatient as his mother cooped up in the palace much of the year yet as autumn approached Alan would have almost preferred being stuck in the palace to being an unattached squire. Ma patted him on the back she had to perch precariously on tiptoes to reach and said that she would have asked him to be her squire but sons weren’t supposed to serve their fathers as squires, and she figured that the same unwritten rule applied to mothers and sons. 

It had gotten so bad—Alan flushed to remember as he finished cleaning his hair and hands, pouring out the dirty water in the wash basin outside his tent so he could refill it and begin soaking his filthy clothing—that even Lord Padraig had been gruffly sympathetic. Before he had dragged the parade of pages to the desert, Lord Padraig had rested a hard hand on Alan’s shoulder and observed in a rough mountain burr that sometimes it took time for a squire to find the right knightmaster, and that the trick was to keep training to remain ready to serve. 

When Lord Raoul had offered to take him as squire, Alan had been elated, brimming with confidence that the right knightmaster had been found for him at last, Alan reflected as he removed his clothes and dropped them unceremoniously into the wash basin to soak until he had time to scrub them with lye soap until his fingers were rubbed raw red. His joy, however, had been dampened by suspicion like a wet blanket banking a fire as his eyes had narrowed and he had frowned as he posed an uncomfortable question to Lord Raoul: “Are you only taking me as your squire because my mother asked you to, sir?” 

If asking the question had been awkward, waiting for Lord Raoul’s answer had been agony. Lord Raoul’s smooth reply as he ruffled Alan’s hair like he had since before Alan could talk had chased away every doubt at least momentarily. “I’m asking you because you’re a boy with potential and an engaging personality. I’m also asking you because I’ve recently rediscovered that I enjoy training a squire.” 

Alan had still been afraid that his position as Lord Raoul’s squire would be perceived as pure nepotism by the soldiers of the Own—that it would be claimed that he wouldn’t be Lord Raoul’s squire if it weren’t for his mother’s friendship with Lord Raoul. To avoid antagonizing the Own, he had tried to be as formal as he could be with a man who staunchly refused to be called by any title more elaborate than “sir.” 

Within his first week, Lord Raoul had put a stop to that formal approach. As Alan dressed in a clean shit and breeches, he stifled a grin as he recalled how his knightmaster had grabbed his elbow one night as he was preparing for bed to ensure that Alan couldn’t drop his gaze to his feet as Lord Raoul told him, gently but firmly establishing the boundaries of their relationship, “You can still speak and joke with me like you’ve done since you were knee-high to a grasshopper as long as you don’t argue with me too much in front of the Own or defy my orders. I’m your knightmaster but I’m also your Uncle Raoul like I promised I would always be.” 

After that, Alan couldn’t be formal without being disobedient to his knightmaster, a conundrum he was certain that only a squire to Lord Raoul with his avowed detestation of etiquette would ever confront, but he still had to hear the whispers about how he was only Lord Raoul’s squire because of Lord Raoul’s friendship with his mother. The whispers tormented him because they were always loud enough for him to hear every vile implication yet soft enough that he couldn’t pinpoint precisely who had expressed such spiteful sentiments. 

Since he was paranoid about being snickered at as another fire-top with a temper that blazed as brightly as his hair even if there was more blond in it than rust, he wasn’t sure that he would have snapped at the whisperers if he could have identified them, but those would undermine him in the Own had gone beyond snide remarks to pranks that interfered with his ability to do his duty. 

That meant the situation had escalated to a war as far as Alan was concerned. Deciding that it was time to rip off his gloves and start punching back at those who taunted him, he withdrew a small writing desk with a secret compartment. Pressing on the exact part on the side of the desk that swung open a concealed drawer, Alan gave a crooked grin as he studied the various magical powders Thom had given him. 

He settled on a vibrant violet one stored in a leather pouch. The powder, which was of Thom’s creation, wasn’t according to its inventor fatal but was guaranteed to cause intense intestinal distress for several days. 

Smirking as he envisioned his detractors bent over latrines or hunched over basins as they vomited the contents of their innards, Alan tucked the leather pouch up his sleeve and dashed out of the tent to report for kitchen duty. 

“You’re late, lad,” Sergeant Osbern, who was supervising those on kitchen duty, scolded, greeting Alan with a swipe to the head from a wooden spoon that Alan had to dodge with a leap to the left. Over the sound of chopping knives, Sergeant Osbern added, “You can make up for it by reporting for kitchen duty tomorrow as well.” 

“Yes, sir.” Alan ducked his head and accepted without argument Sergeant Osbern’s command to cook a vat of mutton stew. 

He whistled a bawdy Corus tune Da had taught him as he cut up mutton, carrots, onions, and celery, and then stirred them into the broth already bubbling over the kitchen tent’s fire so nobody would suspect that he was lonely and miserable instead of cheeky and cheery. 

After shooting a surreptitious glance about him to check that all the soldiers around him were preoccupied with their own tasks in preparing food for a ravenous army, he slipped the powder from his pouch into the stew he was mixing. 

At supper, Alan was careful to ladle himself and Lord Raoul bowls of beef stew instead of the mutton one he had tainted with his powder, earning good-natured ribbing from his knightmaster about his disturbing lack of faith in his own cooking. 

Hours after supper, he had finally finished washing the stink out of the clothes that had been covered in slop and was crawling into his bed roll when he heard the moaning of sick men stumbling to the latrines on the outskirts of camp. He smirked into his pillow but his satisfaction faded when Lord Raoul shook an admonishing finger at him. “You have latrine duty for a month for poisoning everyone with your mutton stew, Alan, so you can wipe that smug look off your face now.” 

“Yes, sir.” Alan bit his lip but couldn’t prevent himself from bursting out in frustration or pain, “What’s everyone else’s punishment for dumping slop all over me, or am I just supposed to live with being the butt of every joke all the time without fighting back?” 

“The pranks and the teasing will subside somewhat once the Own has accepted you into its ranks.” Lord Raoul grasped Alan’s shoulder in a gesture that seemed to be half reassurance and half reprimand. “The taunts and the tricks are just a way of welcoming you into the Own.” 

“They aren’t.” Alan’s jaw tightened so much it hurt like his bruised pride. “Everybody is always whispering about how I’m only your squire because you’re friends with my mother, and she begged you to take me as a favor.” 

“You know that’s not true.” Lord Raoul sighed. “Concern yourself with what’s true, Alan, not with gossip.” 

“I’m tired of being the target of malicious gossip from every person in Tortall who has a nasty opinion about my parents.” Alan massaged his arching temples, realizing that he was sulking and not caring. 

“Come here.” Lord Raoul opened his arms in an invitation he had offered since Alan was a toddler hobbling around on legs wobbly as a colt’s. 

“I’m a bit old for bear hugs, don’t you think?” Alan snorted even as he wished that he could shrink so that he would again be tiny enough for Lord Raoul to toss him in the air, squealing with delight in the absolute, unshakeable faith that he would be caught before he crashed to the ground. 

“You’re never too old for a bear hug.” Lord Raoul crushed Alan against his chest. “I would have preferred that you didn’t poison the mutton stew, but I think you’ll find that your prank proved to the Own that the Lioness’s cub has claws of his own. You should be accepted on your own merits now, lad.”


End file.
